Make J-School TA come to you.

Hello and welcome!

This blog is designed to help you. Hopefully after today's training sessions you'll feel more confident about your new job. But in case there are specific areas you'd like to learn more about before marking your first paper or leading your first tutorial, I've curated a ton of links for you with some more in depth information. They're on the right hand side of the page if you scroll down a bit.

Nervous about speaking in front of a group? Have a look at the tips from Toastmasters International. Never marked a paper? Learn how to make a grading rubric that will save you time and help you be consistent. Not sure how you're going to balance your school work with your TA duties? Peter Bregman of HarvardBusiness.com has some tips for the extremely busy. I even found an application that will block you from sites like Facebook while you're trying to write news stories on deadline.

I'm also planning to write about a post a week on relevant topics, and give you a little more information on what I think are the most useful parts of the resources I've linked to.

But none of my hard work will be of any use to anyone if no one reads it. It's hard to remember to read blogs, and it's annoying to check them only to find that there haven't been any updates since the last time you checked. So I'm going to give you a quick tutorial on how to use iGoogle and Google Reader so that you're notified every time there's a new post. If you don't already use iGoogle, it will change your life. I swear.

1) Go to google.ca/ig
2) Click on "Don't have an iGoogle page?" Or try signing in with your Gmail address. There might be a page set up already with some Google stuff you use. Google is creepy that way.
3) Click "Add stuff"
4) Search for "google reader" in the search box and add it
5) Click on your new Google Reader gadget
5) Sign in with your Gmail address. At this point I think you need to have a Gmail account for it to work. If you don't have one, you can click on "Create an account" and make one. You don't have to actually use it for email.
6) Click "Add a subscription"
7) Type in "jschoolta.blogspot.com"
8) Make iGoogle your homepage

After you've done that, you'll probably want to add a whole bunch of other stuff to iGoogle. I have my Gmail, Facebook, Google Reader, the weather, and headlines from The Globe and Mail, CBC, and the BBC. That means as soon as I go online, I know if I have any email, whether I should bring an umbrella with me to school, if there's a new post in any of the blogs I follow, and what the major news of the day is. I recommend adding some of the blogs I have listed under "journalism blogs" as well - not just because they're interesting, but because I've been asked in internship interviews if I read any journalism blogs and if so, which ones.

You're welcome.